Digital cameras utilizing high-resolution electronic imaging sensors typically require high resolution optical components such as lenses. In addition, the lenses generally must be very compact, so that they can be incorporated into devices such as palm-sized computers, cellular telephones, and the like.
Lenses for digital cameras generally have several individual lens elements. The lens elements are typically spherical, and usually create spherical aberration. Chromatic aberration, coma, distortion, and field curvature are also common optical aberrations that occur in the imaging process of a typical lens. A large number of lens elements are generally required in order to balance the inherent optical aberrations. Lenses having a large number of lens elements tend to be large, heavy, and expensive to manufacture. The large number of lens elements increases material costs, and increases the cost of assembling and mounting the lens elements into the lens cell.
Further, conventional lenses commonly use one or more aspheric lens elements, each of which has one or two non-spherical surfaces. The aspheric lens elements are made of plastic or glass. Aspheric plastics lens elements may be produced by means of plastic injection molding, and are therefore relatively inexpensive. However, the optical characteristics of most plastics lens elements change with changes in temperature and humidity, such as when the digital camera is used outdoors on very hot or very cold days. Furthermore, the hardness of optical plastic material is lower than that of optical glass material. The surfaces of such lens elements are easily scraped or abraded, which affects the precision of imaging. In comparison, glass aspheric lens elements have good optical properties and are less easily scraped or abraded. However, glass aspheric lenses generally cannot be easily produced by traditional glass grinding and polishing techniques. It is only in relatively recent times that glass aspheric lenses have been able to be produced through molding glass methods.
A typical lens having both spherical lens elements and aspheric lens elements is disclosed in China Patent Number 01272836. The lens includes a first spherical lens element, a second aspheric lens element, and a third lens element. The first lens element is biconvex, and is made of glass. The second lens element is biconcave, and is made of plastic. The third lens element has a lens surface convex to the object side of the lens, and is made of plastic. Although the second plastic aspheric lens element decreases the overall weight of the lens, the performance of the lens can easily change with changes in temperature. In addition, changes in humidity may also reduce the image quality.
Accordingly, what is needed is a lens for a digital camera which is compact and which provides stable and good quality imaging.